CLASSICS

'A book that you don't just read, you live' Simon Schama Tolstoy's magnificent epic novel of love, conflict, fate and human life in all its imperfection and grandeurWar and Peace...

'One of the greatest love stories in world literature' Vladimir NabokovThe heroine of Tolstoy's epic of love and self-destruction, Anna Karenina has beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son, but...

The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translationThrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress...

Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan's foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. 'Rashoemon' and 'In...

'Bulgakov is one of the greatest Russian writers, perhaps the greatest' IndependentWritten in secret during the darkest days of Stalin's reign, The Master and Margarita became an overnight literary phenomenon...

One of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time Vol. 1: The Way by Swann's is published in a new translation...

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and...

Since the original prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and...

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and...

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and...

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and...

A philosophical exploration of the idea of 'rebellion' by one of the leading existentialist thinkers, Albert Camus' The Rebel looks at artistic and political rebels throughout history, from Epicurus to...

When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and...

Immortalised by Audrey Hepburn's sparkling performance in the 1961 film of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffany's is Truman Capote's timeless portrait of tragicomic cultural icon Holly Golightly, published in...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''Rhys took one of the works of genius of the 19th Century and turned it inside-out to create one of the...

A pioneering work of modernist fiction, using her unique stream-of-consciousness technique to explore the inner lives of her characters, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is widely regarded as one of...

George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time living among the desperately poor and destitute, Down and Out in Paris and London is a moving tour of the underworld of society.'You...

Bringing into harsh focus the daily struggle for existence in a Soviet gulag, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is translated by Ralph Parker in Penguin...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a...

Steinbeck's first major critical and commercial success, TORTILLA FLAT is also his funniest novel. Danny is a paisano, descended from the original Spanish settlers who arrived in Monterey, California, centuries...

The Plague is Albert Camus's world-renowned fable of fear and courageThe townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and...

George Orwell's searing account of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire in the 1930s, The Road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant and bitter polemic...

Based on his experiences as a policeman in Burma, George Orwell's first novel presents a devastating picture of British colonial ruleBurmese Days describes corruption and imperial bigotry in a society...

George Orwell's paean to the end of an idyllic era in British history, Coming Up for Air is a poignant account of one man's attempt to recapture childhood innocence as...

Robin Kirkpatrick's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy, published in a single volume, is the ideal edition for students as well as the general reader coming to this great...

'His novels will endure as long as the language itself' Peter AckroydDickens's haunting late novel depicts the education and development of a young man, Pip, as his life is changed...

'The greatest tragic writer among the English novelists' Virginia WoolfWith its depiction of the wronged 'pure woman' Tess and its powerful criticism of Victorian hypocrisy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is...

'A work of glorious intelligence and literary devices . . . Nonsense becomes a form of higher sense' Malcolm Bradbury'I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole . ....

'All children, except one, grow up.' It was Friday night. Mr and Mrs Darling were dining out. Nana had been tied up in the backyard. The poor dog was barking,...

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into...

'But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of one's own?'A Room of One's Own...

George Orwell's masterwork, now in the Penguin Clothbound Classics series with a cover designed by Coralie Bickford-SmithOne of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World''Who controls the past controls...

A brilliant modern translation by Christine Donougher of Victor Hugo's thrilling masterpiece, with an introduction by Robert Tombs. This is the best translation of the novel available in English, as...

Beautiful, flaxen-haired Buttercup has fallen for Westley, the farm boy, and when he departs to make his fortune, she vows never to love another. So when she hears that his...

'The first great book, and the first great book about the suffering and loss of war' GuardianOne of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of...

Revealing the breadth of F. Scott Fitzgerald's gift for the short story form, this Penguin Classics edition of The Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Stories spans multiple genres...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'Hidden away in the Record Department of the...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''One of the few English novels written for grown-up people' Virginia WoolfGeorge Eliot's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly evocation...

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...'Vividly interweaving epic historical drama with personal tragedy, Dickens's gripping novel depicts the lives of two very different men,...

'The first of Hardy's great novels, and the first to sound the tragic note for which his best fiction is remembered' Margaret DrabbleThomas Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow...

'The wit of Jane Austen has for partner the perfection of her taste' Virginia WoolfJane Austen's subtle and witty novel of secrets and suppression, lies and seduction, brilliantly portrays a...

'Jane Austen is a genius, and Northanger Abbey is hugely underrated' Martin AmisWith its irrepressible heroine and playful literary games, Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane...

A haunting Modernist masterpiece and the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar-winning film Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness explores the limits of human experience and the nightmarish realities of imperialism....

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into...

Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her past. Elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, she is married to a white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage. When she renews...

'A liberating and lacerating critique of American racial madness, capitalism and white superiority ... Schuyler's wild, misanthropic, take-no-prisoners satire of American life seems more relevant than ever ... Afrofuturist before...

Albert Camus' existentialist masterpiece, now in a wonderful new Clothbound Classics editionIn The Outsider, his classic existentialist novel, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to...

'What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.'Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of...